I want to let the sunshine in, John
by Lady Heliotrope
Summary: I want to let the sunshine in, John. Help me let the sunshine in. Sherlock reflects on what he wants John to be. Metaphorical. Slash-ambiguous.


(From the perspective of Sherlock)

**Symphony No. 5 in F Major**

I want to let the sunshine in, John.  
>I beg of you, move the clouds away.<br>Help me part the leaflike shutters of 221B,  
>And throw up the heavy sash<br>Until I can close my eyes  
>And breathe in the air of London<br>At the close of an eternity of heavy rain,  
>When the molecular concentration<br>Of sulfur and carbon monoxide  
>Is low, and the wind off the Thames<br>Pushes the curtains apart at about 25 km/hr.  
>Then I can open my lungs<br>And let my pores breathe in the sunshine.

I know better than to pray, John,  
>For God is but a sad delusion;<br>I trust a good man more than I trust an icon.  
>You're a good man, John;<br>You do not beget life, but I see  
>That life is around you and in you,<br>And that sunshine is around you and in you.  
>I believe you can fill my request.<br>Indeed, you can confirm my own prescription,  
>Or maybe tell me how I need a higher dose than I thought.<br>But I don't believe my request would conflict  
>With the judgment of your professional opinion.<br>There needs to be some sunshine let in.  
>Undoubtedly, I need some sunshine to be let in.<p>

Nothing further needs to be said.  
>Few men would I entrust with such<br>A task as this, John, for it is indeed  
>Akin to cleaning out the Aegean stables<br>To merely get the shutters to stay open  
>For more than the slightest second.<br>Physics doesn't help me here  
>As much as I wish it did;<br>If I could have designed some marvelous thing  
>To make this work on my own,<br>I'd have long done it, John.  
>I'd have full control over how much sunshine got let in.<p>

As it is at the moment, though,  
>I am frustrated, tired, and bored.<br>You've got a more dogged temperament  
>Than I have, at times, and find glory<br>In the completion of a strenuous task  
>That requires simply brute strength,<br>Of a task not dependent upon the agility of the mind.  
>This is one of those kinds of things, John,<br>One of these difficult, boring things that must be done.  
>But it's not pragmatic and it defies reason.<br>I am loathe to admit how much I need it,  
>For my mind is a mighty machine, John,<br>But it's the context in which this machine exists,  
>The jewel-case that holds it proudly,<br>That is suffering so much without the sun.

John, you are invaluable in so many ways  
>To such a crucial life-saving task as this is.<br>Maybe I do believe in God, John,  
>For I'm a genius of a kind,<br>And we can deduce that such goodness as genius  
>Comes only from a source that is<br>Fond of giving out extras sometimes.  
>But we're at war, John, and the sky is black<br>With the confusion and chaos of battle.  
>I fight, and have always fought<br>Valiantly on the side of the angels,  
>But I am keenly aware I'm not one of them.<br>For angels not only drink of the sunshine, John,  
>They radiate it from their thousand eyes.<p>

I've never let the sunshine in, John  
>All I have drunk up 'til now is the dark.<br>That sweet seductive ambrosia of coldness  
>And scorn and indifference and dispassion<br>Worn like a winter coat with the collar turned up  
>Can only carry a man so far<br>When he is in opposition to the world.  
>A world I can't prevent from dying<br>But that I can at least ease into rest  
>If I have a reserve store of sunshine<br>As a bolster and a comfort.  
>And I see you've got some sunshine, John.<br>Loads and loads of sunshine.

I've been starved of sunshine my whole life,  
>Living instead in the dark with the smells<br>Of death, gunsmoke, and laboratories.  
>I thought I was supreme, and that<br>Lesser men couldn't survive where I have survived  
>Deep in the trenches of dark French beaches<br>But I didn't know that sunshine could shine there  
>Or that a man like you could abide alongside me.<br>So when we look at one another  
>Lusting after life, experiencing every experience,<br>It's a new wing of the mind palace illuminated.  
>For you've lived a life in the sunshine, John.<br>Help me let the sunshine in, too.

We don't know what lies ahead of us,  
>A rush of greatness, a rush of pain;<br>We dare not to look at each other in the darkness  
>Lest each look be our last,<br>But lo! a moment when the clouds have parted  
>And the morning star is shining above,<br>Your steadfastness is beside my flight of fancy,  
>Stable, warm, unchanging, like sunshine.<br>This makes the fight a pleasure, John,  
>So the silence of unsung, lonely tunes within us<br>Does not kill us from the inside out  
>But is instead made relevant, acknowledged, and accepted<br>And diffused as we gulp in the sun.

Dare I ask...dare I ask for a glimpse  
>Of what a life of sunshine might contain?<br>I've painted on our wall a smiling, pleasant face  
>Of yellow, painted with liquid sunshine.<br>And I shot at it, for such things as smiles are made  
>For more mortal men than I,<br>With hearts that are not steeped in the chemicals  
>Of laboratories or evaluated in beakers.<br>But since I cannot emit sunshine, it seems apt  
>To do this strange kind of art, for you.<br>Please understand, it is a kind of embrace.  
>Or...a righteous kiss?<br>Actualized, such a thing would dissect me  
>Like a specimen. But perhaps I crave vivisection,<br>As long as the blade is made of the most sterile sunshine  
>And commanded by a man who <em>is<em> sunshine.  
>Seal the wounds, sew them up with stitches;<br>I can bear the pain of the surgery if it is  
>The only way to get the sunshine in.<p>

For the human soul and psyche are twisted, John,  
>Mine being no exception,<br>As linear and logical as I try to be.  
>Where there is confusion and chaos<br>There are also great gaping holes of dark.  
>I am not being sentimental;<br>These are the places that anger broods  
>Like mold, as well as the inspiration that comes<br>And prods us to do what we would never dream to do.  
>Also the bondage of self justification is rooted there,<br>Fiercely tethered to the new lies we tell ourselves  
>In moments of temptation and weakness.<br>I have resisted these bonds for so long, John  
>But my strength is wearing thin.<br>The fibres of my being are no thicker than  
>Strings on a spider-web sitar.<br>It is imperative, for my sake and the world's,  
>That you help me let the sunshine in.<p>

Could I be a criminal?  
>Do I dare to consider the taste of a bruised peach<br>Or listen to the sirens singing, each to each?  
>I grow old, John, I grow old<br>And I think I have no purpose at times  
>Except to stand like Atlas<br>Solving lesser men's unfortunate crimes.  
>It is a thought that dances increasingly closer,<br>A hand subtly beckoning from a grave,  
>And it promises an interesting future on the horizon<br>Where everything...  
>...Everything...<br>Is dark and mysterious and glorious.  
>But I turn my head, I back away.<br>It is the destiny of someone else.  
>I must bear a torch of sunshine<br>To reveal that these thoughts are dusty mirages,  
>But I also must let the sunshine in, John,<br>To keep them from growing in the first place,  
>For they cannot survive in the sun.<p>

I think if I try to go without the sunshine  
>For much longer, John,<br>I will succumb to the great chasmic abyss  
>That is evil...or worse!<br>Can you imagine my body containing a soul  
>So fractured by the cracks of darkness<br>That it reflects two different men?  
>One who works for the yin,<br>One who reacts to the yin on behalf of the yang?  
>...What am I saying, John! I am not clinically schizophrenic<br>(I pray)  
>But I fear that if I deny the possibility then indeed<br>That is when the danger becomes real.  
>I therefore consider it constantly with the hopes that<br>In my predicting it, adequate preparations are made.  
>So, how real is the man named Sigerson?<br>And what of every cleaning-woman,  
>Peddler, bureaucrat, gypsy, and businessman I have played?<br>There is only one way to prevent such a splintering  
>Of the self, John...and that is clear.<br>Just help me let the sunshine in,  
>Let the sunshine in, to let me see what is true.<p>

I want to arise and go now,  
>But fear that if I stand from this position<br>Too quickly, or if someone slams a door,  
>My iron ego shall weaken, and<br>A fragment of my soul will become separate from my body.  
>The sunshine must be gently let in, John,<br>And dissolve the dark in those untouched spaces  
>That my consciousness will not even recognize.<br>I breathe with heavy breaths and try  
>To contain all of myself at once<br>While also understanding everything in the world.  
>If I become a permeable membrane, John,<br>And let every component of my soul  
>Touch and oil the gears that make up the souls<br>Of everyone and everything in this dying nation  
>Then I will no longer exist, John,<br>Nor will you, nor will England.  
>I fear what the effects of the sunshine will be,<br>It is true, but the thing about sunshine is  
>It requires neither active transport nor diffusion<br>To enter the body of the cell.  
>The sunshine will not inhibit the integrity of<br>My existence, I hope, John,  
>For it is has magical powers of absorption<br>That will allow me to accept it in.  
>The sunshine will come in.<p>

Be my Apollo.  
>Be also silent, though.<br>Lay down your harp;  
>Let us rest in silence,<br>Standing, short of breath, looking at one another  
>While in the rising fog of a dying England.<br>The silence is terrifying, though, John,  
>Loathe as I am to acknowledge that I am scared.<br>I am not deceived by my senses;  
>Indeed, it is my senses that will save me<br>As long as you balance out the coins in your pockets  
>And talk for a while on the prolificity of oysters.<br>Shall the world, then, be overrun by oysters?  
><em>Ha!<em> I made you wonder for a moment, John,  
>I daresay not a very kind trick.<br>But for a moment I made myself wonder too, John.  
>Don't you see how vital, how elementary<br>It is to allow the sunshine into the very  
>Depths of one's being?<br>I am asking for your small assistance in this matter, John,  
>To help me let the sunshine in.<p>

So I beg you to let me lay for awhile  
>In vacant and pensive mood in the sun<br>While you keep alert and ensure that  
>The vulnerability I display is kept private.<br>I need your help to see the sun, John.  
>I need you to let the sunshine into<br>This dark wet pithy crabapple of a man  
>To soften his soul and allow it a chance<br>To deduce some semblance of meaning from it.  
>My flesh is failing for want of the goodness<br>That comes with the deep beauty of sunshine.  
>Don't let me fall while I drink<br>Of the sunshine when I am most open to it.

Help me let the sunshine in, John.  
>To let the sunshine in...<br>...To let the sunshine in.

I want to believe it's not toxic to me yet.

* * *

><p>*This is heavily inspired by "The Flesh Failures  Let the Sunshine In" from the musical, _Hair_.


End file.
